Ramage At Trafalgar r-16

by Dudley Pope

  "If it stays there," Southwick said jubilantly, pointing at the windvane stuck on the weather bulwark capping, a rod with lines at the top, each with a cork tied to it studded with feathers, "we'll be in St Helens a'fore His Lordship has time to sail in the Victory!"

  "Don't count on that," Ramage cautioned. "His Lordship has the light of battle in his eyes: he wants a couple of dozen of the Combined Fleet destroyed. That'll give him wings, as well as teeth."

  The Calypso was rising and falling easily to the crests, occasionally butting a large one into sheets of spray which flung up to darken the foot of the foresail and send streams of water over the planking, rivulets of water twisting and turning with the pitch and roll as they ran aft along the deck. Ramage could feel the salt spray tightening the skin of his face and once, when he incautiously rubbed his eyes, the dried salt made them sting.

  Now for the long stretch across the shallow bay known to seamen as Hythe Flats, with Roar Bank and Swallow Bank just inshore of Dungeness Point at the southern end.

  Halfway across Hythe Flat, Ramage looked at the chart. Yes, although it was not marked in, Aldington was now on the beam, four miles or so inshore of the long stretch of beach (with Martello towers like beer mugs every few hundred yards) in front of Dymchurch.

  Were those towers any use? Would they be, rather, if Bonaparte tried to land his troops? The original Mortella Tower in Corsica, manned by thirty-three French soldiers, had held out against the British for weeks; the design was copied by the gentlemen at the Horse Guards (although for some reason the name was altered to Martello), with seventy-four of them built along the coast facing France. Father had inspected one, and he said they cost £7,000 each and had two storeys. The ground floor was the magazine and the upper accommodation, with a swivel gun or howitzer on the roof. With walls nine feet thick on the seaward side they must be proof against enemy gunfire but brutally cold for the garrisons in winter . . .

  Now they were round "The Ness". He looked across the dead flat Romney Marsh, where the smooth fields were occasionally punctuated by a church tower or steeple with a small cluster of the village round it, and saw where the land rose sharply at the back of the Marsh, like a long cliff. Somewhere there, if only he knew exactly where to look with the bring-'em-near, was Treffry Hall. Had Sarah come home yet, or was she still staying in Palace Street? Curiously he hoped she was still in Palace Street: it was depressing to think that she might be over there at home and this very minute looking out of one of the windows, across the Marsh and towards the Ness, not knowing that that tiny speck on the sea was the Calypso . . .

  Now, almost a copy of Hythe Flats, Rye Bay curved inshore, with Broomhill Sands, Camber Sands and finally Winchelsea Beach before swinging out again at Fairlight, with another dozen miles to Beachy Head.

  Names and history . . . just a few miles ahead of the Calypso the ships of the Norman King William had landed on the Sussex beaches, to meet Harold at what William later called Battle, and where he built an abbey to show his gratitude to the Almighty . . . that was almost 750 years ago. Over two hundred years ago the Spanish Armada had sailed up here, to anchor off Calais, some forty miles astern of the Calypso, and there Sir Francis Drake had set about them with fireships. That was the trouble with sailing up or down the Channel: one's thoughts kept foundering on reefs of history. There was an advantage in being someone like Southwick, to whom history was something that happened yesterday. What happened the day before yesterday (and earlier) was forgotten.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Up on the fo'c'sle the Italian seaman shivered and said to Jackson: "Is cold, this autumn. How long before we get into warmer weather?"

  "That Italian blood o' yours has been thinned out with too much wine," Jackson said unsympathetically. "Cadiz isn't very far south: won't be much warmer than here."

  "Al diavolo!"Rossi swore. "We'll be there all winter blockading these stronzi. They don't intend to come out and fight. Why should they - safely anchored in Cadiz, yards sent down, sails stowed below for the rats to eat, whores waiting in the streets ..."

  "Rosey's getting bloodthirsty," Stafford commented.

  "Your mother's cooking," Rossi said amiably.

  "Yus, she fed our plump friend like he was a chicken bein' fattened for Christmas," Stafford said proudly, his Cockney accent sounding hard when compared with Rossi's deeper Genoese accent.

  "I warned Rosey what would happen if he went home with you for his leave," Jackson said.

  "We 'ad a good time, didn't we Rosey! Even had 'im admitting London ale was as good as wine. Mind you, by then 'e couldn't tell gin from 'oly water."

  "I hope you've repented by now," Jackson said banteringly. "You're setting a bad example for the foreigners!"

  "My oath!" Stafford exclaimed. "And where did you get to on your leave, my American friend? Bet you didn't set Louis, Auguste, Gilbert and Albert much of an example. Never could understand why four innocent Frenchmen should go on leave with you. Sin, that's what you was seeking."

  "What about you and Rosey?"

  "We weren't seeking it; it was seeking us," Stafford said quickly. "There's a difference."

  "That's Beachy Head," Jackson said unexpectedly. "We'll be tacking soon, so's we can inspect the French coast."

  "Where on the French coast?" asked Louis, his French accent revealed mostly by his trouble pronouncing "th", which usually emerged as "z".

  Jackson glanced up at the clouds and then at the English coast. "The wind's nor'west and we'll point high with a nice clean bottom, so I reckon we'll have a sight of Barfleur Point a'fore we go about on to the larboard tack. After that I expect Mr Ramage'll want to get a good offing - coming up to the equinoctials now, and he won't chance getting caught in a gale with Ushant too close under his lee. Not much chance of a sight o' your bit o' coast, Louis."

  The Frenchman shrugged and shook his head. "I don't think of it as mine any more."

  "Nowhere to call home, Louis?" Stafford said sympathetically. "Well, you're fighting on our side, so think o' England as home. Cornwall's the nearest to Brittany, and the Capting comes from there, so why doncher adopt Cornwall?"

  Louis, who with the other three monarchists had helped Ramage and Sarah escape from Brest when war started again and then joined the Royal Navy, understood Stafford's concern and nodded politely. "Yes, there are close links between the two. Half the names are similar and in peacetime the fishermen use one or the other depending on the wind. But not to be worrying, Staff; this ship is my home. Yours, too, if you think."

  Stafford's brow creased with the effort and then he admitted: "You're right, Louis. I was glad to be back on board at the end of that leave. Land people - they don't seem to understand. And someone like Jacko -" he turned to the American, "- well, I suppose the Calypso really is the only home you've got."

  "Home?" Jackson exclaimed, "why, I nearly own her, along with the rest of the lads. Don't forget, we all captured her and have been here ever since we first boarded her."

  "The Admiralty's paid you your prize money," Stafford said shrewdly, "so you're a sort of tenant."

  "As long as they don't charge me rent!"

  "Senta,"Rossi said, "what about this Lord Nelson, eh? Is simpatico, eh?"

  "He's all right," Jackson said firmly. "We first had truck with him in the Mediterranean, when he was a commodore and gave Mr Ramage his first command (which is where we first came alongside Mr Southwick: he was master of that ship, the Kathleen cutter). He's a fine admiral to serve under, but as far as the French and Spanish (and the Danes, too) are concerned, he's a killer."

  "All admirals should be killers," Rossi pointed out.

  "They're not, though, compared with His Lordship. The rest o' them reckon they've won the battle if they drive two or three of the enemy out of the line of battle, but Lord Nelson wants to destroy the lot! At the Nile he captured or destroyed eleven ships out of thirteen; at Copenhagen he captured or destroyed seventeen. Compare that with Lord Howe's six at the Glorious First o
f June or even Lord St Vincent at Cape St Vincent, when two of the four of those captured were taken by Lord Nelson (then only a commodore without any title) personally boarding them! He's not just a fighter," Jackson said sombrely, "he really hates the enemy!"

  "That Victory," Stafford said, "she hasn't been docked, has she?"

  "I don't think so," Jackson said. "His Lordship only arrived back in England two or three weeks ago - so I understood from Mr Southwick - and we're off to join the Victory at St Helens, so there hasn't been time. Why are you asking?"

  Stafford winked and tapped the side of his nose, a gesture he had copied from Rossi. "We've got a clean bottom and she'll be foul: weeks in the Mediterranean, crossing the Atlantic twice . . . just think of the barnacles and weed and torn and worn sheathing . . . in anything but a gale o' wind we should be able to show her our heels!"

  "Don't bet on it," Jackson warned. "His Lordship's flag captain would be commanding a transport by now unless he was good, and the master has been with him for years."

  "This woman from Naples ..." Rossi said tentatively, but was immediately jumped on by Jackson.

  "If you mean Lady Hamilton, she was the wife - now the widow - of the British ambassador to the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, whose king and queen - as you well know - live in Naples -"

  "Accidente!"Rossi exclaimed, "not criticalizing -"

  "Criticizing," Jackson corrected.

  "Is what I say, I don't criticalize Lord Nelson, I ask about the lady, is all I ask."

  "All right, then," Jackson said. "She's His Lordship's friend, just as her husband was when he was alive. Good friends."

  "Good friends!" Stafford exclaimed, "she's his mistress!"

  "What's wrong with that?" Jackson demanded angrily. "Even when we were last in Antigua I heard stories about what a cold woman Lady Nelson was - the widow of a soldier, too," he added, the final condemnation. "After what he did at St Vincent, the Nile and Copenhagen, I don't care if he has twenty mistresses; he deserves 'em!"

  "And me not criticalizing His Lordship," Rossi said crossly, "I was only asking to make sure he has a mistress, I knowing about this wife ..."

  "Criticize an Englishman's horse," Gilbert said dryly, "or even his wife, but be careful of his mistress: that much I learned while working in England as the Count of Rennes' servant. But," he added warningly, "if he is happily married it works differently: you can criticize his wife, but never criticize his horse."

  "Just shows you mixed with different people," Stafford grumbled. "My lot have a wife or a horse or a mistress, and a wise man watches his tongue when talking about any o' them."

  "Of course, the horse would be stolen, the wife regularly beaten, and the mistress paid with dud coins," Jackson commented to Gilbert. "Stafford's friends don't get taken up by the press because no receiving ship'd have 'em!"

  "Sounds good comin' from the Jonathan," Stafford said, teasing Jackson with the name by which the Navy always referred to Americans. "Listen, Gilbert, whenever you stop a Jonathan ship and board to see if they're breakin' the blockade - 'specially in the West Indies - they're always carrying a cargo o' 'notions'. I arsk you, 'notions'!"

  "What's wrong with that?" demanded Jackson. "Just means a mixed cargo. All sorts o' things. Needles and thread, pots and pans, clothes - all the things people need to live their lives."

  '"Notions'," Stafford repeated scornfully, "what a barmy word!"

  At that moment, Aitken's hail from the quarterdeck rail stopped the talk: a reef point on the maincourse had somehow become entwined with the next one in the row and the pair of them, tightening up, would cause the sail to rip in a sudden puff. The mainsail had to be furled to clear the points, and the sailmaker would go aloft with the topmen to make sure the sail had not been damaged.

  Jackson's estimate to Gilbert was correct: they could just make out Pointe de Barfleur at the western end of Seine Bay when the order came to go about. This gave the Calypso forty miles of sailing close-hauled on the larboard tack back towards England to reach the Nab off the Isle of Wight and close to St Helens, the fort, anchorage and village at the eastern end of the island, across the Solent from Portsmouth and Spithead. St Helens had the advantage that it was in the lee of the island and well protected from the prevailing west and south-westerly winds.

  Ramage was by now certain the Victory would have sailed for Cadiz, but Southwick reckoned the Calypso would arrive in time. "My Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty will find some way of delaying him; you can be sure of that," Southwick said heavily, "and Mr Pitt will want to see him for 'discussions', and the Secretary of State for the Foreign Department: they'll all want to tell the tale in their drawing rooms, how they told the famous admiral how to fight his battle."

  "You sound like me," Ramage said, laughing at Southwick's lugubrious voice. "But the only thing I can think of that might delay His Lordship is waiting for copies of Sir Home Popham's new telegraphic code. His Lordship told me he was determined to take out a copy for every ship in the fleet and he may have had to wait for enough to be printed and bound."

  "What's so magical about this new telegraphic code that the admiral would let it delay him?"

  Ramage gestured in a wide sweep across the horizon, indicating limitless distance. "With the present edition of the Signal Book for Ships of War, an admiral can only give - by flag signals - some four hundred-odd orders: in other words, only those that are printed in the Signal Book.

  "But supposing he wants the fleet (or a particular ship) to do something else that isn't in the book? Well, he can't: if the evolution isn't in the Signal Book, it can't be ordered by signal. The admiral has his hands tied to the listed signals - and that doesn't suit Lord Nelson.

  "Now, Home Popham has brought out his new 'telegraphic code', and from what I hear it means an admiral can as good as hail his fleet and tell them precisely what he wants done.

  "Whereas the Signal Book gives a complete order for every signal number," Ramage explained, "Home Popham has chosen four thousand of the most important - the most active - words that an admiral might want to signal, and given them numbers, so that an admiral can make up a specific order, signalling each word. Home Popham has been quite clever, too: one word - one signal number - can have various shades of meaning: for example, 'Appear-ed-ing-ance', or 'Arm-ed-ing-ament' -"

  "But that means signalling number 4,000 for the last word in the code," Southwick protested.

  Ramage shook his head. "No, Home Popham has a much better way. He's also lumped 'I' and 'J' together and said there are twenty-five letters in the alphabet, and each letter represents a number - 'A' is one, 'B' two, 'F' six, 'P' fifteen, 'U' twenty and 'Z' twenty-five."

  Southwick sniffed suspiciously, but Ramage ignored him. "One flag means units - 'G' would be seven, for example. With two flags, the upper one represents tens and the lower units - 'E' and 'F' would be fifty-six. Three flags are hundreds for the upper, tens for the middle and units for the lower. Thus 'A' 'B' 'C' would be signalled as 123."

  Aitken, who had been listening to Ramage's explanation, said: "Once we get a copy, sir, I suggest we have a competition among the officers to see who can make up the most amusing signal using, say, six flags!"

  "We'll do that," Ramage promised, "but His Lordship hasn't enough frigates, and if I know him, he'll be busy thumbing through Popham's code, finding detailed ways of keeping us busy!"

  And, he thought to himself, thank goodness we've just left the dockyard with fresh sheathing, mostly new sails, and Aitken and Southwick having gone over every inch of masts, spars and rigging, both standing and running. If we have to get to windward in the teeth of a full gale, we won't have to worry about a mast going by the board . . .

  He saw Aitken look at his watch and a moment later Martin, the young fourth lieutenant and son of the master shipwright at the Chatham yard, came up the quarterdeck ladder to take over as officer of the deck.

  He was a lively youngster, known throughout the ship as "Blower" Martin because of hi
s skill with a flute. Ramage had resigned himself to hearing only sea chanties and tunes popular with the seamen when, towards the end of the last voyage, he discovered that Martin himself preferred more serious music and was very familiar with the likes of Telemann and the flute concerti of Mozart and Haydn.

  As soon as Aitken had passed on the Calypso's course and details of the wind for the past hour, and reported that there were no unexecuted orders, he went below, leaving Martin as officer of the deck, with the master and captain standing around, talking.

  Soon Ramage said: "Well, Martin, I hope you've brought plenty of good sheet music with you."

  "Yes, sir. I went up to London specially. I've been practising the newer items." He grinned. "I've discovered Mr Southwick doesn't share your enthusiasm for Mozart!"

  Ramage, pretending to be shocked, turned to the master. "Unmasked at last, eh Mr Southwick? I've always had my doubts about you."

  "I don't exactly dislike him, sir, it's just that he's a foreigner and he doesn't put a tune together like our chaps do. To be honest, I prefer the tunes 'Blower' plays for the sailors."

  "What about the other lieutenants and Orsini?" Ramage asked Martin.

  "The Marchesa's nephew has been making my life a misery! He's so keen! When he was in London he bought me a lot of sheet music without realizing you can't play everything on a flute! Opera is his favourite, but there's not much you can do for opera with just a flute!"

  There was a shout from aloft: the lookout at the foremasthead was hailing, and Martin snatched up the black japanned speaking trumpet.

  "Foremast - deck here!"

  Martin quickly reversed the cone-shaped metal tube so that it acted as an ear trumpet. He listened and, reversing it once again, shouted: "Very well, report every ten minutes."

  "Two frigates on our larboard bow sir, apparently running up for Spithead."

  Ramage nodded. "We'll be seeing several more of the King's ships before long: at the moment we seem to be in a particularly deserted stretch of the Channel. I imagine Lord Barham is calling in every possible frigate to provision and water and to make for Cadiz."